


Fiona the Middle Man

by kaibacorp



Category: Borderlands (Video Games)
Genre: First Dates, Idiots in Love, Mutual Pining, Nonbinary Character, Other, Trans Character, rhys is trans but thats a given ykno not really brought up
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-21
Updated: 2019-10-20
Packaged: 2020-12-27 08:21:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,777
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21115670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaibacorp/pseuds/kaibacorp
Summary: Fiona's had to deal with being the wingman to two different idiots for too long. This wasn't in her job description at all.





	Fiona the Middle Man

**Author's Note:**

> me and my roommate be like: freaks it about zerhys at all times

Fiona had always been taught not to form attachments. Growing up on the city streets of Pandora with only Sasha to rely on, she learned pretty quickly that other people were less than trustworthy. The only thing anyone else was good for was pocket change. The next person she had placed trust in was Felix, and everyone on Pandora knew that hadn’t ended well.

That’s why when she met Rhys, she was rightfully suspicious. Rhys, with his long gangly limbs, skag skin boots, and weirdly ripped sidekick, had embodied everything that she ever saw as an enemy. A corporate asshole with seemingly endless money from his cushy job up on the moon? She felt no remorse pushing him out of the caravan, no sir. That had changed, evidently, after they had opened the vault of the traveler. Rhys was no longer just an annoying twink who had seemingly had a crush on her kid sister. No, now he was more of a-dare she say it-friend. A friend who she admittedly called every other day to remind him that he was, as previously stated, an annoying twink, but a friend nonetheless.

That didn’t mean that she wanted to be his wingman. Gross.

Her position as a vault hunter put her in closer proximity to the object of Rhys’s affections, a certain long-limbed, four-fingered, seemingly alien ninja of indeterminate gender and species. She sometimes worked alongside Zer0 on higher-profile missions, but they weren’t exactly on speaking terms. Was anyone on speaking terms with them? Rhys surely wanted to be. Her mechanical-armed friend never shut up about the assassin. Every time they called or had dinner the topic eventually drifted to her vault hunting coworker. She had to listen to Rhys time after time describe the time that he had come face to face with them, but the details seemed to change every time. The only constant was the heart that had projected from the alien’s mask when Rhys complimented them. Fiona had only ever seen zeroes, smiley faces, and the like projected from that screen, accompanied by numerous quick-witted haikus from what she could only believe to be their mouth. Did they have a mouth? She didn’t want to think about it.

It started off innocently enough, Rhys asking to give Zer0 guns on his behalf, the newest Atlas developments in sniper rifles or holo-ninja-bullshit-swords. That was okay. It got her in the assassin’s good graces, and kept Rhys happy. Then it escalated to missions for Zer0. Fiona said that she would gladly take on the missions for her friend, but Rhys insisted that they were more suited for Zer0’s skillset. Whatever, she had her own missions to do. She complied and passed the missions along to Zer0.

She thought if Zer0 now had to return to Rhys for mission rewards, she would be kept out of it. No such luck. Now Zer0 themselves came to Fiona to bring intel back to Rhys. It was getting ridiculous. Fiona may not have been getting the missions, but she should be getting paid for all the leg work she was being put through. Fiona knew Rhys was guilty for being a bitch about his feelings, but Zer0? The trained assassin? It was getting ridiculous now. She wasn’t blind, she could see (well, more feel) the assassin’s nearly nonexistent nerves when they delivered what Rhys had requested they gather, it was the only time that the other dropped their mysterious haiku facade, instead speaking in minimal sentences or words, giving Fiona genuine thanks for being their go-between. They always had some flimsy excuse why they couldn’t make it to Atlas themselves, even though they seemingly had time to bring it to Fiona instead.

It all added up to one thing, which was that Fiona finally had the chance to use her con-artist skills for good. The next free day she had, she got straight to work on operation Get Rhys’s Dumb Ass Laid.

\---

Rhys was utterly confused and concerned. It was completely unlike Fiona to plan something ahead, let alone plan anything at all. She had called the week before and insisted that they go out together, at this date and time specifically, which had thrown Rhys a bit. He hadn’t really gone out since he restarted Atlas. There was always some sort of disaster to fix or person to gently reprimand (didn’t want to remind anyone at all of any other brown-haired CEO…) that made him cancel his plans. But Fiona demanded that he leave his ECHO at home and just come out with her. And he had agreed.

To be quite frank, he had been under a lot of pressure lately. Turns out, being the sole head of a multi-planet corporation was not all fun and games. And on top of that, he had this horrible crush.

Not a crush.

CEOs didn’t have crushes. But it was...something. Every time he heard Zer0’s name spoken it sent a chill up his spine. He couldn’t help but remember the time that the other had driven their holo-sword directly through that bandit lord Bossanova’s subwoofer chest and then teleported away from certain death. Something about them and their mysterious charm was just haunting to Rhys.

Gross. A little too poetic there, Rhys. Get it together.

He stood in his closet doorway trying to choose what to wear. Fiona wouldn’t have asked him to come out tonight if it wasn’t some special occasion, which had him worried too. Did he miss some sort of birthday? Anniversary? Was today the anniversary of when they opened the Traveller? Or was it some sort of Pandoran drinking holiday? Rhys didn’t know. He chose a business-casual type outfit and pulled on his skag-skin boots, and walked out the door.

When he got there, he was about ten minutes early. It was some sort of less-sketchy Pandoran bar, where the music wasn’t as loud and the place didn’t smell too bad. For once. Rhys sat down at the bar and ordered whatever sounded good off the menu and waited for Fiona to show up.

Ten minutes passed, then fifteen, and Rhys feared he might have been stood up by his con artist friend. And then, just like when him and Vaughn were trying to buy the fake vault key, the vault hunter showed up.

More accurately, Zer0. And in no less of a bloody spectacle than the last time. The door gave way underneath the weight of a bandit being recklessly thrown through it, and Zer0 gracefully flipping in behind it. They scanned the room with ease, blank mask landing on Rhys before projecting a neon red question mark. They phased out of being as they were attacked from behind, reappearing next to Rhys and cleanly taking out the bandit with a shot to the head. Rhys suppressed a gag at the gory scene, and tried very hard not to notice the warmth of the vault hunter standing incredibly near him.

As soon as they were sure the bandit was truly dead, they turned to Rhys. “I apologize. / I expected Fiona. / I thought she could help…” They trailed off. Rhys was unsure if it was due to them not knowing what to say or if there were too many syllables to continue with their haiku.

Rhys was flustered. Not only had he not expected or prepared for an encounter with Zer0 at all, but he was also in extremely close proximity to them. They were a whole lot taller up close, almost an entire foot taller than Rhys, and for someone who was usually the tallest in any room he entered, that was extremely rare for Rhys. Just as Rhys’s thoughts were trailing in less than pure directions, Zer0 spoke again.

“We have been set up. / I believe by Fiona. / Did she ask you here?” Zer0 tilted their head, feline-like at Rhys. The CEO was sure that his face was an embarrassing, blotchy color of bright red. Fiona set them up. He thinks that he must have been asking for it with how much he spoke of Zer0 to Fiona.

“Uhh...yeah, she did. Must have had a conflict of schedules, huh?” Rhys laughed nervously and searched for the exit. He was making a fool of himself in front of the man...person...alien? That he was crushing hard on. He could now admit that it was a crush when he was looking straight into the cold depths of that mask’s screen, currently not emoting much of anything at all.

“Rhys, I am not dumb. / My actions lately have been…” Zer0 paused in thought. Rhys felt the seconds tick by as he waited for the last line he knew was coming. “A bit evasive.” Zer0’s last line was sharp. Abrupt.

“Hey if this is about getting Fiona to bring me the stuff, it's no problem, I get it, you’re busy-” Rhys started rambling. He was panicking. It was spiraling time, and Rhys knew it.

Luckily, Zer0 grounded him quickly by putting their lithe hand on Rhys’s good arm. “No, it is my fault. / I have been avoiding you-” Rhys startled. Before he could even get a word out, Zer0’s hand moved from his arm to his mouth. Rhys probably shouldn’t have found it so attractive that such deadly hands were on him, treating him oh so gently even though they could easily be used to kill him without a second thought…

God he had it bad.

“Let me make it up.” Rhys made a confused noise from behind the assassin’s hand, pulled out of his horny daydream by something that he couldn’t be sure he wasn’t also dreaming up.

As Zer0’s hand left his mouth, Rhys started stumbling over the words that spilled out. He wasn’t sure what exactly he said, but he meant to say something along the lines of, “No, it’s okay, there’s nothing for you to make up,” or “What do you mean by make it up?”. What actually came out was something like: “asdfghjkl;”.

Zer0 seemed to take this as a positive sign, as they produced a piece of paper and wrote down a time and place. They placed the paper in Rhys’s hand and were gone before Rhys could say anything else to embarrass himself. He glanced down at the paper that he held in his hand and felt butterflies erupt in his stomach. Zer0’s handwriting was crisp and clean, just what he had expected it to be like. The note read:

“Moxxi’s bar at 5.

Next Wednesday evening.

Let’s call it a date?”

God, they even wrote in haiku.

Rhys was going to either kill or kiss Fiona, he hadn’t decided yet.

**Author's Note:**

> will write their actual first date eventually. soz lmao


End file.
